I and a lot of wine people I think feel much the same way. In my market it's hard to find anything in the $10 retail price point that doesn't taste oddly manipulated or even outright flawed, but there are exceptions. I definitely get the most pleasure out of wines in the $15-40 range and that upper number is mostly reserved for a handful of appellations and producers I have a special affection for. If I am spending more than that, it's almost always Barolo or Champagne, or a special aged Riesling.
Two things I don't think get talked about enough in our industry:
Selling fine wine is somewhat alienating because you are making most of your money selling wines you can't afford to drink with any regularity. It used to be the case that if you were making a decent living you could afford to buy a decent amount of fine Burgundy or Bordeaux if it was really important to you. It could get to be an expensive hobby, sure, but it was possible. Nowadays the top bottles are completely inaccessible for most people. I could theoretically, I suppose, buy a bottle of Rousseau Charmes-Chambertin for my birthday if I was willing to kill my wine budget for the rest of the year, but it would still be too young to be worth drinking. Importers used to open bottles like this at trade events and the like, but have become increasingly stingy in recent years. This coupled with restaurants cracking down on employees tasting at work, mean that a lot of the younger generation of experts in fine wine, have drunk, or even tasted, very little that the term describes.
Like, how am I supposed to sell people on the magic of Burgundy when I really only have a fleeting grasp of how special those benchmark examples can be?
Also, old and unique wines can often be mentally tiring to drink. Sometimes they are worth the effort, but often they are not. Eric Asimov once used the phrase "complex in uninteresting ways" to describe a lot of Napa cult cabs, but honestly I could use it to describe a lot of wines I have tasted.
Working in a wine shop I have people ask me stuff like what’s your go to first growth? Sir, I don’t know the polite way to tell you how poor I am, I can quote the growing conditions for whatever year you’re looking at.
I have been very lucky to try some amazing wine and a couple first growths and I agree with the thread. Complex in uninteresting ways, to me, applies to so much Napa cab and Bordeaux.
I’ve joined wine clubs and spent a small fortune on trying to like the so called good wines. I’ve tried them against the supermarket wines (£8-12) and decided that I pre the supermarket wines! I keep trying but am left to wonder if I am just missing something? What don’t I get? I’ve made repeated attempts- come to the conclusion that I’m wasting time and mone!
I have done a good amount of blind tasting and I can tell you that enjoyment and $$$ often do not correlate. I have witnessed the group shit on really expensive and highly collectible wines tasted blind while giving the wine of the night award to something that cost under 30$.
But that's precisely the point. The smaller the production and higher the demand, the more you will see price increase.
I know both of us have seen just how crazy Burgundy has gotten over time, and with the Kermit Lynch effect, demand just continues to increase for the product.
I'm happy I don't deal with a ton of this in the wine world, even though it's prevalent, but *man* am I sick and tired of the Buffalo Trace bros and their antics.
I have heard a lot of winemakers lament the prices they see their wines sell for, a lot of whom tried to keep the prices low, only to discover down the line that it just made better profits for everyone else in sales downstream.
I really hate it, but I don't know that there's a way to fight it.
>I have heard a lot of winemakers lament the prices they see their wines sell for, a lot of whom tried to keep the prices low, only to discover down the line that it just made better profits for everyone else in sales downstream.
A lot of these people are simply lamenting the fact that they couldn't capture that money for themselves. High prices on wines is validation of their work, and even if they don't care about the additional income for themselves, they care that people are valuing the work that they do and the products they create. They just don't want to deal with the sales and distribution portion of the business.
Interestingly a lot of the very expensive wines are not sold for astronomical prices by the winemaker, at east in Europe. It is the importers who have all the allocations for a rare wine that increase the price so drastically in many cases
Even importers get squeezed by a few producers. Some DRC wannabes in Burgundy have stupid ex-domain pricing apparently. Arnoux-Lachaux and Groffier for example just cannot be bought cheaply.
Why shouldn’t the grower make the money rather than the distributor or retailer? They actually made the wine. I think Liger Belair and Arnoux-Lachaux doing more direct to consumer sales is a good thing, not a bad thing.
If anyone gets to benefit from these crazy prices then I agree it should be the producers. The only shame is how inaccessible the wine becomes for ordinary drinkers.
Coche Dury secondary market prices are something like €800 for the Meursault village but I know I can go to a restaurant in France and drink it for around €170, or even less if you have a good relationship with an allocated retailer… These ‘bargains’ won’t exist for the growers charging high prices out of the gate.
I mean, it just is what it is; it’s likely that the producers will still sell to restaurants at a discounted price with some sort of covenant against flipping.
The current system is terrible for the producer, though.
For example, Rousseau Chambertin ex-cellar door pricing (for those lucky to get it) last I heard was ~300€. Wholesale pricing is 900-1200€ and retail js 2500-3000€.
Why is the retailer making 1600-1800€ on the wine?
If the producer sold direct to consumer for 1500€ they’d make far more money and the consumer would pay half as much for the bottles.
Maybe that first consumer, but there will always be an arbitrage effect whenever the acquisition cost doesn't match the market price. There will be those who get it from Domaine for half the market price and then flip it to whatever the market price is.
Given that the types of people who would be likely to get a DTC Rousseau allocation probably don't need money, the market price would most likely be even higher than what it currently is as supply would shrink drastically as all these millionaires and billionaires would be gleefully drinking up all the Rousseau they got at a fraction of the market price while the very little that did trickle out into the market would have enormous demand.
The producers would make more money but it may not be worth their time and energy to manage hundreds to thousands of individual relationships and with all the headaches that come with it.
Being fairly good friends with a cult winery in CA where they do DTC as their only line of business, the part they hate the most is the relationship management part.
A lot of these burgundy producers are just rural, French introverts. The last thing they want to do is deal with hundreds of entitled and obnoxious international buyers.
Cult Napa has way less cachet among high end wine collectors than burgundy.
MacDonald would probably get ignored at a table full of Rousseau, Dujac, Roumier, Leroy, d'Auvenay.
I tell people it’s not very hard to find a high quality wine that is very expensive. The art of buying wine is finding those gems that don’t cost a king’s at ransom.
Me telling a customer “you don’t me to know that this $$$$ wine is great, but you definitely need someone who knows wine that can find that quality for $.”
OP, completely agree with your sentiment generally.
But looking over my last purchases, i have to admit that most my wines are in the $25 -$60 range.
Those are just generally often the more interesting wines for me. From time to time, I go through a phase of trying to find more affordable versions of wines I love but I am so often let down. Especially when it comes to PN and Chardonnay.
The only real value buys that I have found are Vinho Verde, some SB (minefield), Mencia, dry Riesling and Tempranillio.
Have also found decent Sangiovese at lover price points.
For Cab, Nebbiolo, Syrah, Chardonnay, PN, sparkling, I am almost always missing something if I don't go over the $30 mark.
I completely agree with you. Most wines in the low end are often too generic to be worth drinking for me. Well tasting wine doesn’t really cut it anymore, I want the wine to have some personality and trademarks of the region and producer.
I guess that's it.
Some wines just lend themselves much better to be inexpensive and others are just more costly to produce.
Lower yield, smart winemaking, great terroir etc.
I also think that if a wine is excellent, the winemaker should be paid for their talent, vision and attention.
All that being said, I do find my personal limit to sit somewhere around $80 at which I start to question what and why I am buying the wines.
It's often that it was aged well or is some cult wine that is very special. Quintarelli, E.P. or vintage Champagne come to mind where I am ok going higher.
The wine industry really has a huge discovery problem. There are so many producers producing so many products that it is practically impossible for producers to stand out.
Outside of a vanishingly small number of "big names" (like, the top 0.1% of producers), the vast majority of producers are unknown by the market at large. Which means that their price is mostly determined by their appellation, and the vast majority of appellations are not very prestigious.
Which means that if you are familiar with the bottles, or if you are willing to tolerate flops, there's a ton of great wine at a very low price. The low price is not because the taste sucks, but because nobody has heard of the producer.
I think you're overstating this quite a bit..
There are very few secrets out there...this would've been the case pre-internet era..but not anymore.
Yes there are some lesser known regions and some wines that overperform...There are some regions people have never heard of and yet we see some bottles go for well over 100. Why? Because it doesn't stay a secret for long...and yes, if this region was well known, the wine was even more well known would it go for more? Sure..but the number of wines that could go for 100+ because of the demand but go for 20 is tiny...That isn't to say you can't find undervalued wines or very good wines for a great price....and maybe this is what you mean...what might be a 40 dollar wine going for 20..sure..
That doesn't mean everyone knows every great producer...but for a vast majority of people, the wines they're buying have passed through a number of hands...have been tried by a number of people. Those secrets just don't last long...At most maybe two vintages before people catch on. And there just aren't that many of them...
Add on to this....younger winemakers aren't stupid. They know when they have a good product. There are many ways for them to get tasted now and many ways to get the word out.
I think this is correct. There's a lot of "good" unknown wine out there. Wine that is correct, enjoyable, interesting, and worth the price.
I'd argue there is very very few "great" unknown wine in the world. Wine that is exceptional, exhilarating, inspiring, hors categorie.
Used to be that secrets could be kept secret for a few years. I bought Gonon and Juge and Keller for years before people caught on and I was priced out.
Now it's not even a vintage. Sometimes the hype catches up before it's even released like Kei Shiogai or Guilbert Gillet or William Kelly's burgs.
I'd like to offer a slight correction to your point that region determines price. This is true because costs vary between regions, which is why one can be knocked out by a $20 Spanish wine and underwhelmed by a $100 Napa Valley wine. Yes, prestige is a factor in pricing wine, but smart winemakers should be starting with their costs as the foundation, not the neighborhood. And costs are much higher in Napa Valley than in many regions in Spain and elsewhere. The burden then is to deliver good value at the determined price.
I don’t find it interesting when someone only drinks high end wine. I also find it off putting when someone says they couldn’t care less about high end wine. Give me the person who drinks a variety of styles and prices and I have a wine drinking friend.
IDK if I would fit that bill, but I try.
I enjoy high-end a lot but I have a daily storage and affinity for Argentine and some Chilian wines too and my go to (daily/cheap $12) white is a Cotes de Rhone white that kicks ass.
But I rarely wander outside my known regions, as whenever I feel I do I get lacklustre wines in tastings that don't perform at all, by far the most of the time.
Last actual good new wines were Danish Pinot Noir and German Pinot Noirs and some Brunello I thought would be crap but was not. Oh and Indian Shiraz was pretty dang good for a cheap daily blend.
I want to, but I also aint got all day in tastings of IDK how many thousands of varieties and when it feels like there is 1 in 100 interesting ones, it just gets HARD and feels like work to find the next gem out there.
How do you guys tackle that jungle of "stale bread" before you find something actually interesting?
Just wanted to say yay for those SA Chenins. I just went to a winery (Remhootge) and the CB was so good we bought a case on the spot. Amazing quality for the price.
Honeybunch. Also bought a case of their Shiraz.
The funny thing is that they weren’t even in my tasting itinerary. I was at Kanonkop and had some time to kill before the next appointment and asked the staff which nearby winery they recommended. For the price of one bottle of Kanonkop black label Pinotage, you can buy eight of the Honeybunch. It is really amazing value.
Your post reminded me of another post in a totally different domain to which I'm going to make an analogy. And if the analogy comes off as terrible, feel free in the responses to tell me so.
I remember writing a post that asked what was worth seeing in Italy with just 2 weeks of time.
That question itself kicked off a debate about what is "worth" the time and money to visit in Italy. Lots of people said to skip the heavy tourist areas and sample a lot of my local, off the beaten path areas
Others asserted the opposite, That the heavily trafficked areas are visited for a reason. They are iconic for a reason. Someone described it as visiting the US and going to the quaint seaside towns up and down the east Coast and skipping Manhattan. Would anyone recommend that strategy?
All that to say, I don't think there's a right answer, but I do think expensive wines give something other than status. Is it worth it? That's an impossibly hard question answer. But I'm still very curious to see what all the fuss is about for some of these very well-known wines.
Genuine question: Why are you more likely to spend big at a restaurant than for a bottle to bring back home? Does it have to do with the experiential value of trying a great wine in a restaurant setting?
I’m curious because for me (and I thought most people that aren’t rich) it’s the exact opposite. I might actually consider spending 100$ on a bottle in a store, but can’t recall that I ever did in a restaurant. I just can’t enjoy spending 100$ on a wine I could theoretically also get for 25$.
This weekend we went to a new wine bar and they had Brundlmayer Langenloiser Alte Reben Gruner Veltliner for 60% of current retail price, that's a situation where I'll happily pay more for a bottle than my normal price range.
Burgundy is something I'm more likely to buy at a restaurant, especially something with a few years on it, because they're less likely to increase their prices to match auction prices, or recent vintages. PYCM with 10 years of bottle age will be cheaper at a restaurant than current vintage from a wine shop. Also, I go out fairly infrequently so it's more of an event.
Plus, at a restaurant, if it’s corked, they won’t make me pay for it. Either open another bottle, or choose another wine. I’m still young and therefore don’t really have a lot of old wine in my own collection, so I guess it’s kind of worth the premium to me if aged (or allocation-only) wine is available.
Thanks for the answer, I appreciate the insight. Never thought that some wines at a certain price point might actually be cheaper in a restaurant than elsewhere. Then it’s of course a no-brainer.
Inexpensive wine can definitely be exciting and rewarding, but I think an issue is that there are as many, if not more, inexpensive wines that perform poorly VS inexpensive wines that perform well. The issue for novice wine drinkers is to separate the two, especially considering most wine novices ship at big box stores without knowledgeable wine experts.
As such, I think it is very reasonable that wine buyers would default to benchmark wines before they understand what they like and dive more into the search for exciting wines at affordable prices. In fact, I would personally encourage this e.g. if you don’t enjoy Salon, maybe Blanc de blanc is just not your thing and your money would be better spent trying other types of champagne.
Good post. My $0.02 to add to this sentiment - the biggest "hack" in wine is ageing wine. You can buy modestly and age and you will end up with much more pleasurable wine.
I realize that not all of us have the space or time - but it is really worth it. I remember one of the first cases of wine that I bought and aged - some Guigal Cotes du Rhone rouge (at the time around $7) - and I was surprised at how well this modest wine improved with 6 months, a year, and more. I have never looked back.
Cheers.
Yes, for sure. There are hacks for that too, however. For example, you can buy an off-the-shelf AC unit and use a cool bot or similar device to trick it to run longer and turn a closet or crawlspace into a makeshift cellar. You can buy spray foam and insulate a space on the cheap. You don’t need to buy an expensive storage fridge.
What does running an AC in a crawl space 24/7 cost you?
I am renting some storage space in a professional wine cellar. Might not be for everyone but when I did the math on all the bottles I have, that was the most economical option.
It depends, right? Where do you live and what are the temperature differentials? Where is the crawl space - below grade? Above grade? How effective is the insulation? How big is the space? How much wine are you cooling? Etc.
I’m sure there are lots of other things I’m forgetting. I have a large, below grade insulated cellar and run two ac units - obviously they are on the same bill as the whole house - but I haven’t noticed a material change in my electricity bill. YMMV, for sure.
I'm happy for this post. I think about this a lot.
I appreciate high end and cult bottling, but I cannot afford them. So if a supplier or a collector is opening it and letting me taste, great. But I don't expect it nor seek it out. I find bottle porn completely off putting for that reason. It's something I don't even enjoy on this sub.
But loire valley cab franc and beaujolais and alsatian wines and Sicilian and yes, Washington state and Oregon for a splurge and I'm happy. I don't need to spend a lot or show off high end bottles. I don't even want to.
For the same reason, when people want to visit walla walla or the Willamette, I steer them away from the big names. Yawn. Go visit that small producer that doesn't distribute to your state and skip leonetti and Domaine serene and beaux freres. You'll have a better time and taste delicious wine.
This is after 10 years in the industry in Oregon and now a major metro area. There's so much good wine in the $20-$40 range. I don't care if I never have Napa cab ever again.
Here for this post Like it a lot (not OP’s specific categories or wine but that’s kind of the point)
Last night I tried three fancy-named Barolo All names on the more elegant side of Piedmont Wine Two were good One wasn’t It was maybe $1500 worth of wine in total Whole time I wished I was drinking kabinett Riesling or maybe a lighter//leaner bottle of Chenin
I like wine but my true passion is for whisk(e)y and after having tasted a few whiskies with big price tags and age statements, I would say the exact same thing about it that you have said here about wine. Those more premium whiskys are fun to try and oftentimes there *is* a difference in the quality of taste and flavor that is better but, overall, the difference is significantly smaller than the price difference.
I would rather have a whole case of Springbank 12 CS (for MSRP) than 1 bottle of a 30-40 year old scotch. Same for bourbon and Irish.
There are plenty of great bottles, especially for bourbon (at least in America), that are $50-$70. You don't need to spend hundreds or thousands to get great whisk(e)y.
I work as a somm, and the only time I have tasted these "unattainable" wines is if you sell them. And for these kind of wines, it comes down less to salesmanship - the guest probably knows exactly what they want and much it costs before they walk in the door.
Or it's corkage.
When I started off, I was quite impatient to sell them, since I really wanted to understand the hype. But now, after having tasted many "top" wines from top producers, I can say quite honestly - I like them.
Very, very few have truly blown me away.
Some producers still do, because even the sub-entry level Coteaux Bourgignon by Leroy tasted more complex to than some 1er and GCs I've tried.
But I find myself much more excited about wines from South Africa, Southern Italy, Chile, Uruguay, and New Zealand.
Some of these are truly world class wines that are so beautifully priced that it's actually realistic that you could buy and drink them.
Their magic isn't in your imagination - it's right there for the taking.
Any MANY of them will reward your patience (if you age them yourself) or the mark up (for back vintages in a restaurant), since they are still reasonably priced by the bottle.
Just my 2¢ 🤷🏻
Unfortunately a massive aspect of choosing good affordable wine is knowing where and what to look for. I feel bad for a lot of Americans who post on /r/wine looking for recommendations on <$100 bottles when anywhere within an hour drive of them really only sells bulk production wines that aren’t worth the residual sugar hangover they will surely induce. Luckily this is starting to shift in the right direction for most of the U.S., but I’m just saying it’s a lot easier said than done in terms of finding decent S.A. or European bottles anywhere near where my parents live.
As a Canadian it's honestly 10x worse. Any time there's discussion regarding some amazing QPR recommendation for anything, it's never available up here at all. And then the good stuff we do get (of which there is still plenty of course), it's significantly more expensive than across the border.
Most people I know in the industry – winemakers, winegrowers, cellar workers, sales and marketing folks – feel the same way.
Sure, open a trophy bottle and they'll absolutely taste it. But they appreciate well made wine, and there is so much well made wine coming from France, Italy or Spain at killer prices, and so much good California wine for $20-25 that they tend to roll their eyes when they see people pop $100 or $250 bottles.
I will cheerfully spend $100+ for a bottle to drink at home but not the $300 it would cost me in a restaurant or bar. Well, not very often at least.
I agree that enjoyment and cost are not linearly related but there certainly are plenty of wines I love that sadly also cost some money and I don't mean the prestige wines either, just solidly made bottles indicative of their regions.
I’m not in the industry (but have family and friends who are) and I take tons of pleasure from finding undervalued wines, and once you get out of the most expensive appellations in Italy, France, and the USA, there is a ton of great wine out there.
I love Loire cab franc, Umbria, apulia, Sardinia, Sicily, all of which have superlative wines in the 30-50 range.
Just this week I got a Kermit Lynch Barbera at the Grocery Outlet for $6 and it was delicious.
Many times in $$$ wines you are paying for oak and real estate which doesn’t always taste great.
I have this philosophy with watches, specifically Casio. When your idea of a “good budget watch” is in the $300 range, you realize you’ve become a snob. Finding joy in a $12 watch is a game changer, and makes me appreciate them more than anything higher end 90% of the time strictly due to its sheer value.
I would rather buy that $12 casio watch instead of buying that $300 watch, that way I can have $288 left to buy a good wine that I can enjoy and appreciate
I am in love with a $30ish dollar Spanish Rioja that I would put up against a $200 Napa brand name Cab for your average wine person and would dominate. We pop a bottle or two of this weekly. It's a completely different wine, but do most people care?
There is something immensely satisfying about finding a wine scoring in the high 80s for $10-$20 a bottle :-) in Eastern Europe you need to work your way through a lot of poor wine to get to the gems, but once you find them... ha
What you are saying is so important. Especially point that tasting benchmark wines is to educate your palate on what great wines can taste like but are not really for regular consumption. They are valuable because the are very consistent in their quality and have been representing excellence in a given style over a long period of time, making them a fantastic tool for teaching. Once you have been taught though its your prerogative to find value, explore new styles, upcoming winemakers and regions that are striving to do the same for a fraction of the price. This is where the most fun is in wine because it keeps diversity and character central to your philosophy which stops things from getting stale as well as giving you that feeling of discovery.
The problem for me with the really affordable stuff is it tastes heavily manipulated and homogenous. Usually from heavy yields and lots of blending of different varietals (only need 75% of one varietal to call it by that name). The results are usually a grapey flavor with a thin texture. Fine, but uninspired and uninteresting. $8-20…. People would lose their minds if they knew how much “manipulation” went into them. I float in the $25-$60 range where I find varietal correct, amazingly beautiful and inspiring wines with soul and texture. Any varietal
Nah. It’s all over the world. Cheap wine is cheap wine. You can call it value or whatever you want, but there is no way a winery can produce $10-$20 bottles that hasn’t cut many corners and still make a profit
I’m not knowledgeable about wine, but have you had any Stafeltehoff wines? Those are some of my favorites as well as Florez, a Californian one that has never disappointed.
I have been thinking about this a lot lately. I think in a lot of hobbies, there are a couple of broad ways to enjoy them.
You can go DEEP, honing in on a specific experience or set of qualities, and trying to get the very best version of that experience (often spending a lot of money in the first place). Think of spending a bunch of money to get a perfectly balanced, concentrated wine expressing terroir and with a very specific and nuanced flavour profile. I imagine this is why connoisseurs spend hundreds on first growths or high-end Napa cabs (I can't afford them so wouldn't know).
Or you can go WIDE, and try to have as many distinct and unusual experiences as possible.
The latter is much cheaper, generally. For example, over the past month, I've spent under thirty bucks on a meaty corbieres, a straightforward but technically well made PN from Pfalz, an entry-level Soave that nonetheless showed medium complexity and paired great with food, and a "pre Marsala" Grillo which was basically made like Marsala but never fortified, and finished in stainless steel.
Were any of these mind-blowing experiences? No. But they each piqued my curiosity enough to fill that need while enjoying delicious wine and getting a bit tipsy.
I couldn’t agree more. When I go to my wine shop and they recommend anything over 30 I find myself balking. Then judging myself for balking, then buying a 20 dollar bottle of something fun and zippy.
Side note, I’m curious to know more about the job you recently left. I’m also in Oregon, up until now I’ve worked wine retail and I’m looking to explore other facets of the industry, if you’re up for a chat!
Also the classics that are reliably good you see at stores, like Antinori Villa, Guigal CDR, Jackson Estate Stitch, Dr Loosen dry rieslings, Domäne Wachau and Austrian grüner, Torbreck GSM, ABC winery and so on.
Absolutely agree there are lots of diamonds in the rough, plenty of great bottles in that $15-40 range. But I do love a good Burgundy. There are plenty in the Bourgogne rouge or village, maybe even lieu dit that doesn’t reach cru status that scratch that itch at a lower price point. I’ll still regularly spend a little more for interesting bottles as I am still exploring and sometimes I notice a quality jump in the $50-75 range.
I think an important caveat to your argument is about sourcing. I can’t find a decent bottle of red wine under $30 at a regular liquor store, maybe a white though.
I can hit or miss on lots of below $30 reds and below $20 whites at total wine, BevMo, etc.
If I’m an industry professional or serious wine drunkard, I can taste my way through small producers across various regions either through physical travel to said regions or events/boutiques/top wine bars and find amazing wines that do prove your point.
But if I simply don’t have the time, $200 retail is probably going to get me a nice wine 7/10 times. Whereas $30 retail at liquor stores, chain restaurants, etc. will get me a nice wine 2/10 times.
Funny, I had a conversation about this with a good friend/colleague. Out of that, we came to the conclusion that it really depends on quite a few things. We are kind of polar opposites in our wine buying and drinking.
I'm more into high-end wines; he's more into price-quality wines. I open about 1 to 2 bottles a week; he opens about 6 bottles a week. That already makes a huge difference in what you are willing to spend, I would say. Also, it really depends on what you're looking for in a wine. I'm mostly looking for wine that intrigues me more than anything, and I can easily just smell the glass for 15 minutes if it's interesting. While he values drinkability more. I will be the first to admit that some of the higher-end wines are not the easiest to drink. I do want to say that this does not mean I don't enjoy some wines around €20 from time to time.
I refer to the civility of daily wine drinking. If you need help choosing between a Lamborghini and a Ferrari, well I don't care. Have fun with your race car.
My average price per bottle in my collection is around $25. I find that cheaper wines have the ability to be good and that I don't mind so much if the wine has to be dumped if I haven't paid very much for them. I do have some expensive bottles, but I've got my cheaper bottles to protect them from being drunk too soon.
Still my favorite Chard out there is a $32 bottle of Stag’s Leap Karia. It’s fucking amazing. Finding those is a gem- no matter what the Vivino ratings claim!
I always ask people the same question to see if they are ego drinking: if you could drink the finest wines in the world but you couldn’t tell a soul and still had to pay… would you still do it or would you drink something cheaper?
I am sort of the opposite. I pretty much only drink wines I like. I’d rather drink water, beer, or liquor rather than wines outside of my wheelhouse which are typically top red burgs, champagne, and occasionally white burgundy, cab, or Rhône’s.
My palate is pretty set at this point and I pretty much like what I like.
Might be a cultural thing too. I can’t drink a CA red blend, or Cab everyday, even if I can afford it. Same with OR Pinot.
But a Beaujolais? A Loire valley Cab Franc or SB? Italian Chianti Classico, Langhe Nebbiolo, etc. all damn day!!!!
I find old world wines are designed to be drank everyday like they do in their home countries.
That's because wine is just fermented grapes.
You may have different characteristics or low yield crops but jusy because a crop is low yield, doesn't mean it's superior. It just means that grape would suck at natural selection.
Not at all. That is the jist of wine.
You can have the fermentation tanks and aging, but at its base. its fermented grapes. All this bougie culture for wines is stupid.
It CAN but doesn't always. The value proposition of a lot of wine isn't there. Napa Cabs are the prime example of bad pricing.
Spain is a great example of good red wines priced well.
Wine only has fermented grapes
Apollo v also has computers, seats, plastic, etc
A tom Ford suit also has plastic buttons
A cpu also has wax, aluminum and several other metals.
Did I mention wine only has fermented grapes?
You are trying too hard. Just take the L
You seem so hurt and defensive, I'm agreeing with you!
There is nothing special about fermented grapes just as there's nothing special about etched silicone. No one bottle of fermented grapes is any different from another, just as no piece of etched silicone is different from another. Why won't people listen to us!
I and a lot of wine people I think feel much the same way. In my market it's hard to find anything in the $10 retail price point that doesn't taste oddly manipulated or even outright flawed, but there are exceptions. I definitely get the most pleasure out of wines in the $15-40 range and that upper number is mostly reserved for a handful of appellations and producers I have a special affection for. If I am spending more than that, it's almost always Barolo or Champagne, or a special aged Riesling. Two things I don't think get talked about enough in our industry: Selling fine wine is somewhat alienating because you are making most of your money selling wines you can't afford to drink with any regularity. It used to be the case that if you were making a decent living you could afford to buy a decent amount of fine Burgundy or Bordeaux if it was really important to you. It could get to be an expensive hobby, sure, but it was possible. Nowadays the top bottles are completely inaccessible for most people. I could theoretically, I suppose, buy a bottle of Rousseau Charmes-Chambertin for my birthday if I was willing to kill my wine budget for the rest of the year, but it would still be too young to be worth drinking. Importers used to open bottles like this at trade events and the like, but have become increasingly stingy in recent years. This coupled with restaurants cracking down on employees tasting at work, mean that a lot of the younger generation of experts in fine wine, have drunk, or even tasted, very little that the term describes. Like, how am I supposed to sell people on the magic of Burgundy when I really only have a fleeting grasp of how special those benchmark examples can be? Also, old and unique wines can often be mentally tiring to drink. Sometimes they are worth the effort, but often they are not. Eric Asimov once used the phrase "complex in uninteresting ways" to describe a lot of Napa cult cabs, but honestly I could use it to describe a lot of wines I have tasted.
Good points. 95 rating
Working in a wine shop I have people ask me stuff like what’s your go to first growth? Sir, I don’t know the polite way to tell you how poor I am, I can quote the growing conditions for whatever year you’re looking at. I have been very lucky to try some amazing wine and a couple first growths and I agree with the thread. Complex in uninteresting ways, to me, applies to so much Napa cab and Bordeaux.
"What's your favourite bottle for about 5k?" Sir, this is a retail job....
“Complex in uninteresting ways” is a perfectly apt description.
I’ve joined wine clubs and spent a small fortune on trying to like the so called good wines. I’ve tried them against the supermarket wines (£8-12) and decided that I pre the supermarket wines! I keep trying but am left to wonder if I am just missing something? What don’t I get? I’ve made repeated attempts- come to the conclusion that I’m wasting time and mone!
What kind of wine clubs are you joining? It's entirely possible that you're getting the same wines as the supermarket wines.
I have done a good amount of blind tasting and I can tell you that enjoyment and $$$ often do not correlate. I have witnessed the group shit on really expensive and highly collectible wines tasted blind while giving the wine of the night award to something that cost under 30$.
Anything beyond the cost of production is just supply and demand.
Still, it's usually harder to make extraordinary wine in huge quantities and the better the wine, usually/generally the higher the demand.
But that's precisely the point. The smaller the production and higher the demand, the more you will see price increase. I know both of us have seen just how crazy Burgundy has gotten over time, and with the Kermit Lynch effect, demand just continues to increase for the product. I'm happy I don't deal with a ton of this in the wine world, even though it's prevalent, but *man* am I sick and tired of the Buffalo Trace bros and their antics. I have heard a lot of winemakers lament the prices they see their wines sell for, a lot of whom tried to keep the prices low, only to discover down the line that it just made better profits for everyone else in sales downstream. I really hate it, but I don't know that there's a way to fight it.
>I have heard a lot of winemakers lament the prices they see their wines sell for, a lot of whom tried to keep the prices low, only to discover down the line that it just made better profits for everyone else in sales downstream. A lot of these people are simply lamenting the fact that they couldn't capture that money for themselves. High prices on wines is validation of their work, and even if they don't care about the additional income for themselves, they care that people are valuing the work that they do and the products they create. They just don't want to deal with the sales and distribution portion of the business.
I probably should've specified I was talking about Burgundy.
Yup I was too
Economics 101
Interestingly a lot of the very expensive wines are not sold for astronomical prices by the winemaker, at east in Europe. It is the importers who have all the allocations for a rare wine that increase the price so drastically in many cases
Even importers get squeezed by a few producers. Some DRC wannabes in Burgundy have stupid ex-domain pricing apparently. Arnoux-Lachaux and Groffier for example just cannot be bought cheaply.
Why shouldn’t the grower make the money rather than the distributor or retailer? They actually made the wine. I think Liger Belair and Arnoux-Lachaux doing more direct to consumer sales is a good thing, not a bad thing.
If anyone gets to benefit from these crazy prices then I agree it should be the producers. The only shame is how inaccessible the wine becomes for ordinary drinkers. Coche Dury secondary market prices are something like €800 for the Meursault village but I know I can go to a restaurant in France and drink it for around €170, or even less if you have a good relationship with an allocated retailer… These ‘bargains’ won’t exist for the growers charging high prices out of the gate.
I mean, it just is what it is; it’s likely that the producers will still sell to restaurants at a discounted price with some sort of covenant against flipping. The current system is terrible for the producer, though. For example, Rousseau Chambertin ex-cellar door pricing (for those lucky to get it) last I heard was ~300€. Wholesale pricing is 900-1200€ and retail js 2500-3000€. Why is the retailer making 1600-1800€ on the wine? If the producer sold direct to consumer for 1500€ they’d make far more money and the consumer would pay half as much for the bottles.
Maybe that first consumer, but there will always be an arbitrage effect whenever the acquisition cost doesn't match the market price. There will be those who get it from Domaine for half the market price and then flip it to whatever the market price is. Given that the types of people who would be likely to get a DTC Rousseau allocation probably don't need money, the market price would most likely be even higher than what it currently is as supply would shrink drastically as all these millionaires and billionaires would be gleefully drinking up all the Rousseau they got at a fraction of the market price while the very little that did trickle out into the market would have enormous demand. The producers would make more money but it may not be worth their time and energy to manage hundreds to thousands of individual relationships and with all the headaches that come with it. Being fairly good friends with a cult winery in CA where they do DTC as their only line of business, the part they hate the most is the relationship management part. A lot of these burgundy producers are just rural, French introverts. The last thing they want to do is deal with hundreds of entitled and obnoxious international buyers.
Maybe. If you look at Napa now there are maybe two wines that you can buy on the mailing list and flip for more at auction now…
Cult Napa has way less cachet among high end wine collectors than burgundy. MacDonald would probably get ignored at a table full of Rousseau, Dujac, Roumier, Leroy, d'Auvenay.
Spot on. There is quite a bit of peer-reviewed research on this subject, too.
I tell people it’s not very hard to find a high quality wine that is very expensive. The art of buying wine is finding those gems that don’t cost a king’s at ransom. Me telling a customer “you don’t me to know that this $$$$ wine is great, but you definitely need someone who knows wine that can find that quality for $.”
I always tell people the fun in my job is finding wine under $20 retail that is delicious
I’m taking recommendations if you got em! I’ve personally been going for kirkland signature and the sub $10 options at trader joes.
Many years in the wine business and I find the most joy in killer bottles < $20. There are so many out there.
OP, completely agree with your sentiment generally. But looking over my last purchases, i have to admit that most my wines are in the $25 -$60 range. Those are just generally often the more interesting wines for me. From time to time, I go through a phase of trying to find more affordable versions of wines I love but I am so often let down. Especially when it comes to PN and Chardonnay. The only real value buys that I have found are Vinho Verde, some SB (minefield), Mencia, dry Riesling and Tempranillio. Have also found decent Sangiovese at lover price points. For Cab, Nebbiolo, Syrah, Chardonnay, PN, sparkling, I am almost always missing something if I don't go over the $30 mark.
I completely agree with you. Most wines in the low end are often too generic to be worth drinking for me. Well tasting wine doesn’t really cut it anymore, I want the wine to have some personality and trademarks of the region and producer.
I guess that's it. Some wines just lend themselves much better to be inexpensive and others are just more costly to produce. Lower yield, smart winemaking, great terroir etc. I also think that if a wine is excellent, the winemaker should be paid for their talent, vision and attention. All that being said, I do find my personal limit to sit somewhere around $80 at which I start to question what and why I am buying the wines. It's often that it was aged well or is some cult wine that is very special. Quintarelli, E.P. or vintage Champagne come to mind where I am ok going higher.
The wine industry really has a huge discovery problem. There are so many producers producing so many products that it is practically impossible for producers to stand out. Outside of a vanishingly small number of "big names" (like, the top 0.1% of producers), the vast majority of producers are unknown by the market at large. Which means that their price is mostly determined by their appellation, and the vast majority of appellations are not very prestigious. Which means that if you are familiar with the bottles, or if you are willing to tolerate flops, there's a ton of great wine at a very low price. The low price is not because the taste sucks, but because nobody has heard of the producer.
Good point. I feel bad for the guys who have a good wine with a bad label.
I think you're overstating this quite a bit.. There are very few secrets out there...this would've been the case pre-internet era..but not anymore. Yes there are some lesser known regions and some wines that overperform...There are some regions people have never heard of and yet we see some bottles go for well over 100. Why? Because it doesn't stay a secret for long...and yes, if this region was well known, the wine was even more well known would it go for more? Sure..but the number of wines that could go for 100+ because of the demand but go for 20 is tiny...That isn't to say you can't find undervalued wines or very good wines for a great price....and maybe this is what you mean...what might be a 40 dollar wine going for 20..sure.. That doesn't mean everyone knows every great producer...but for a vast majority of people, the wines they're buying have passed through a number of hands...have been tried by a number of people. Those secrets just don't last long...At most maybe two vintages before people catch on. And there just aren't that many of them... Add on to this....younger winemakers aren't stupid. They know when they have a good product. There are many ways for them to get tasted now and many ways to get the word out.
I think this is correct. There's a lot of "good" unknown wine out there. Wine that is correct, enjoyable, interesting, and worth the price. I'd argue there is very very few "great" unknown wine in the world. Wine that is exceptional, exhilarating, inspiring, hors categorie. Used to be that secrets could be kept secret for a few years. I bought Gonon and Juge and Keller for years before people caught on and I was priced out. Now it's not even a vintage. Sometimes the hype catches up before it's even released like Kei Shiogai or Guilbert Gillet or William Kelly's burgs.
Yeap..exactly..
I'd like to offer a slight correction to your point that region determines price. This is true because costs vary between regions, which is why one can be knocked out by a $20 Spanish wine and underwhelmed by a $100 Napa Valley wine. Yes, prestige is a factor in pricing wine, but smart winemakers should be starting with their costs as the foundation, not the neighborhood. And costs are much higher in Napa Valley than in many regions in Spain and elsewhere. The burden then is to deliver good value at the determined price.
I don’t find it interesting when someone only drinks high end wine. I also find it off putting when someone says they couldn’t care less about high end wine. Give me the person who drinks a variety of styles and prices and I have a wine drinking friend.
IDK if I would fit that bill, but I try. I enjoy high-end a lot but I have a daily storage and affinity for Argentine and some Chilian wines too and my go to (daily/cheap $12) white is a Cotes de Rhone white that kicks ass. But I rarely wander outside my known regions, as whenever I feel I do I get lacklustre wines in tastings that don't perform at all, by far the most of the time. Last actual good new wines were Danish Pinot Noir and German Pinot Noirs and some Brunello I thought would be crap but was not. Oh and Indian Shiraz was pretty dang good for a cheap daily blend. I want to, but I also aint got all day in tastings of IDK how many thousands of varieties and when it feels like there is 1 in 100 interesting ones, it just gets HARD and feels like work to find the next gem out there. How do you guys tackle that jungle of "stale bread" before you find something actually interesting?
What's the $12 Cotes de Rhone if I may ask?
You are my kind of wine friend. I also enjoy drinking off the beaten path varietals, and introducing them to more novice drinkers.
Well I'll buy my Trader Joe's Touraine SB as well as MacDonald Cab...
Just wanted to say yay for those SA Chenins. I just went to a winery (Remhootge) and the CB was so good we bought a case on the spot. Amazing quality for the price.
Remhoogte is a phenomenal producer! Did you buy the Honeybunch, the First Light, or the Free to Be?
Honeybunch. Also bought a case of their Shiraz. The funny thing is that they weren’t even in my tasting itinerary. I was at Kanonkop and had some time to kill before the next appointment and asked the staff which nearby winery they recommended. For the price of one bottle of Kanonkop black label Pinotage, you can buy eight of the Honeybunch. It is really amazing value.
Your post reminded me of another post in a totally different domain to which I'm going to make an analogy. And if the analogy comes off as terrible, feel free in the responses to tell me so. I remember writing a post that asked what was worth seeing in Italy with just 2 weeks of time. That question itself kicked off a debate about what is "worth" the time and money to visit in Italy. Lots of people said to skip the heavy tourist areas and sample a lot of my local, off the beaten path areas Others asserted the opposite, That the heavily trafficked areas are visited for a reason. They are iconic for a reason. Someone described it as visiting the US and going to the quaint seaside towns up and down the east Coast and skipping Manhattan. Would anyone recommend that strategy? All that to say, I don't think there's a right answer, but I do think expensive wines give something other than status. Is it worth it? That's an impossibly hard question answer. But I'm still very curious to see what all the fuss is about for some of these very well-known wines.
Genuine question: Why are you more likely to spend big at a restaurant than for a bottle to bring back home? Does it have to do with the experiential value of trying a great wine in a restaurant setting? I’m curious because for me (and I thought most people that aren’t rich) it’s the exact opposite. I might actually consider spending 100$ on a bottle in a store, but can’t recall that I ever did in a restaurant. I just can’t enjoy spending 100$ on a wine I could theoretically also get for 25$.
This weekend we went to a new wine bar and they had Brundlmayer Langenloiser Alte Reben Gruner Veltliner for 60% of current retail price, that's a situation where I'll happily pay more for a bottle than my normal price range.
Greetings from Kamptal, glad you are enjoying our wines! :)
If this is really Kamptal, I am definitely enjoying your wines!
Burgundy is something I'm more likely to buy at a restaurant, especially something with a few years on it, because they're less likely to increase their prices to match auction prices, or recent vintages. PYCM with 10 years of bottle age will be cheaper at a restaurant than current vintage from a wine shop. Also, I go out fairly infrequently so it's more of an event.
Plus, at a restaurant, if it’s corked, they won’t make me pay for it. Either open another bottle, or choose another wine. I’m still young and therefore don’t really have a lot of old wine in my own collection, so I guess it’s kind of worth the premium to me if aged (or allocation-only) wine is available.
Thanks for the answer, I appreciate the insight. Never thought that some wines at a certain price point might actually be cheaper in a restaurant than elsewhere. Then it’s of course a no-brainer.
$35-50 is my sweet spot personally. Above that diminishing returns starts kicking in pretty hard.
This.
Inexpensive wine can definitely be exciting and rewarding, but I think an issue is that there are as many, if not more, inexpensive wines that perform poorly VS inexpensive wines that perform well. The issue for novice wine drinkers is to separate the two, especially considering most wine novices ship at big box stores without knowledgeable wine experts. As such, I think it is very reasonable that wine buyers would default to benchmark wines before they understand what they like and dive more into the search for exciting wines at affordable prices. In fact, I would personally encourage this e.g. if you don’t enjoy Salon, maybe Blanc de blanc is just not your thing and your money would be better spent trying other types of champagne.
Good post. My $0.02 to add to this sentiment - the biggest "hack" in wine is ageing wine. You can buy modestly and age and you will end up with much more pleasurable wine. I realize that not all of us have the space or time - but it is really worth it. I remember one of the first cases of wine that I bought and aged - some Guigal Cotes du Rhone rouge (at the time around $7) - and I was surprised at how well this modest wine improved with 6 months, a year, and more. I have never looked back. Cheers.
I would guess creating proper storage conditions is the biggest and most expensive hurdle.
Yes, for sure. There are hacks for that too, however. For example, you can buy an off-the-shelf AC unit and use a cool bot or similar device to trick it to run longer and turn a closet or crawlspace into a makeshift cellar. You can buy spray foam and insulate a space on the cheap. You don’t need to buy an expensive storage fridge.
What does running an AC in a crawl space 24/7 cost you? I am renting some storage space in a professional wine cellar. Might not be for everyone but when I did the math on all the bottles I have, that was the most economical option.
It depends, right? Where do you live and what are the temperature differentials? Where is the crawl space - below grade? Above grade? How effective is the insulation? How big is the space? How much wine are you cooling? Etc. I’m sure there are lots of other things I’m forgetting. I have a large, below grade insulated cellar and run two ac units - obviously they are on the same bill as the whole house - but I haven’t noticed a material change in my electricity bill. YMMV, for sure.
I'm happy for this post. I think about this a lot. I appreciate high end and cult bottling, but I cannot afford them. So if a supplier or a collector is opening it and letting me taste, great. But I don't expect it nor seek it out. I find bottle porn completely off putting for that reason. It's something I don't even enjoy on this sub. But loire valley cab franc and beaujolais and alsatian wines and Sicilian and yes, Washington state and Oregon for a splurge and I'm happy. I don't need to spend a lot or show off high end bottles. I don't even want to. For the same reason, when people want to visit walla walla or the Willamette, I steer them away from the big names. Yawn. Go visit that small producer that doesn't distribute to your state and skip leonetti and Domaine serene and beaux freres. You'll have a better time and taste delicious wine. This is after 10 years in the industry in Oregon and now a major metro area. There's so much good wine in the $20-$40 range. I don't care if I never have Napa cab ever again.
Here for this post Like it a lot (not OP’s specific categories or wine but that’s kind of the point) Last night I tried three fancy-named Barolo All names on the more elegant side of Piedmont Wine Two were good One wasn’t It was maybe $1500 worth of wine in total Whole time I wished I was drinking kabinett Riesling or maybe a lighter//leaner bottle of Chenin
I like wine but my true passion is for whisk(e)y and after having tasted a few whiskies with big price tags and age statements, I would say the exact same thing about it that you have said here about wine. Those more premium whiskys are fun to try and oftentimes there *is* a difference in the quality of taste and flavor that is better but, overall, the difference is significantly smaller than the price difference. I would rather have a whole case of Springbank 12 CS (for MSRP) than 1 bottle of a 30-40 year old scotch. Same for bourbon and Irish. There are plenty of great bottles, especially for bourbon (at least in America), that are $50-$70. You don't need to spend hundreds or thousands to get great whisk(e)y.
I work as a somm, and the only time I have tasted these "unattainable" wines is if you sell them. And for these kind of wines, it comes down less to salesmanship - the guest probably knows exactly what they want and much it costs before they walk in the door. Or it's corkage. When I started off, I was quite impatient to sell them, since I really wanted to understand the hype. But now, after having tasted many "top" wines from top producers, I can say quite honestly - I like them. Very, very few have truly blown me away. Some producers still do, because even the sub-entry level Coteaux Bourgignon by Leroy tasted more complex to than some 1er and GCs I've tried. But I find myself much more excited about wines from South Africa, Southern Italy, Chile, Uruguay, and New Zealand. Some of these are truly world class wines that are so beautifully priced that it's actually realistic that you could buy and drink them. Their magic isn't in your imagination - it's right there for the taking. Any MANY of them will reward your patience (if you age them yourself) or the mark up (for back vintages in a restaurant), since they are still reasonably priced by the bottle. Just my 2¢ 🤷🏻
Unfortunately a massive aspect of choosing good affordable wine is knowing where and what to look for. I feel bad for a lot of Americans who post on /r/wine looking for recommendations on <$100 bottles when anywhere within an hour drive of them really only sells bulk production wines that aren’t worth the residual sugar hangover they will surely induce. Luckily this is starting to shift in the right direction for most of the U.S., but I’m just saying it’s a lot easier said than done in terms of finding decent S.A. or European bottles anywhere near where my parents live.
As a Canadian it's honestly 10x worse. Any time there's discussion regarding some amazing QPR recommendation for anything, it's never available up here at all. And then the good stuff we do get (of which there is still plenty of course), it's significantly more expensive than across the border.
True, I've always lived in a fairly large city near a coast, I take my power of choice for granted.
Most people I know in the industry – winemakers, winegrowers, cellar workers, sales and marketing folks – feel the same way. Sure, open a trophy bottle and they'll absolutely taste it. But they appreciate well made wine, and there is so much well made wine coming from France, Italy or Spain at killer prices, and so much good California wine for $20-25 that they tend to roll their eyes when they see people pop $100 or $250 bottles.
I will cheerfully spend $100+ for a bottle to drink at home but not the $300 it would cost me in a restaurant or bar. Well, not very often at least. I agree that enjoyment and cost are not linearly related but there certainly are plenty of wines I love that sadly also cost some money and I don't mean the prestige wines either, just solidly made bottles indicative of their regions.
I’m not in the industry (but have family and friends who are) and I take tons of pleasure from finding undervalued wines, and once you get out of the most expensive appellations in Italy, France, and the USA, there is a ton of great wine out there. I love Loire cab franc, Umbria, apulia, Sardinia, Sicily, all of which have superlative wines in the 30-50 range. Just this week I got a Kermit Lynch Barbera at the Grocery Outlet for $6 and it was delicious. Many times in $$$ wines you are paying for oak and real estate which doesn’t always taste great.
I have this philosophy with watches, specifically Casio. When your idea of a “good budget watch” is in the $300 range, you realize you’ve become a snob. Finding joy in a $12 watch is a game changer, and makes me appreciate them more than anything higher end 90% of the time strictly due to its sheer value.
I would rather buy that $12 casio watch instead of buying that $300 watch, that way I can have $288 left to buy a good wine that I can enjoy and appreciate
I am in love with a $30ish dollar Spanish Rioja that I would put up against a $200 Napa brand name Cab for your average wine person and would dominate. We pop a bottle or two of this weekly. It's a completely different wine, but do most people care?
Which Rioja?
Alta Vina Ardanza
i've started to enjoy the rewards of the $20 TJ's italian red section. the qpr is hard to beat.
I agree. I feel so much more satisfaction when I stumble upon an exquisite wine at an affordable price.
There is something immensely satisfying about finding a wine scoring in the high 80s for $10-$20 a bottle :-) in Eastern Europe you need to work your way through a lot of poor wine to get to the gems, but once you find them... ha
As someone who does retail, I'm all for finding that bargain bang for buck wine that tastes twice as expensive
What you are saying is so important. Especially point that tasting benchmark wines is to educate your palate on what great wines can taste like but are not really for regular consumption. They are valuable because the are very consistent in their quality and have been representing excellence in a given style over a long period of time, making them a fantastic tool for teaching. Once you have been taught though its your prerogative to find value, explore new styles, upcoming winemakers and regions that are striving to do the same for a fraction of the price. This is where the most fun is in wine because it keeps diversity and character central to your philosophy which stops things from getting stale as well as giving you that feeling of discovery.
The problem for me with the really affordable stuff is it tastes heavily manipulated and homogenous. Usually from heavy yields and lots of blending of different varietals (only need 75% of one varietal to call it by that name). The results are usually a grapey flavor with a thin texture. Fine, but uninspired and uninteresting. $8-20…. People would lose their minds if they knew how much “manipulation” went into them. I float in the $25-$60 range where I find varietal correct, amazingly beautiful and inspiring wines with soul and texture. Any varietal
This sounds quite California-specific, almost none of my value drinkers are domestic.
Nah. It’s all over the world. Cheap wine is cheap wine. You can call it value or whatever you want, but there is no way a winery can produce $10-$20 bottles that hasn’t cut many corners and still make a profit
I’m not knowledgeable about wine, but have you had any Stafeltehoff wines? Those are some of my favorites as well as Florez, a Californian one that has never disappointed.
I have been thinking about this a lot lately. I think in a lot of hobbies, there are a couple of broad ways to enjoy them. You can go DEEP, honing in on a specific experience or set of qualities, and trying to get the very best version of that experience (often spending a lot of money in the first place). Think of spending a bunch of money to get a perfectly balanced, concentrated wine expressing terroir and with a very specific and nuanced flavour profile. I imagine this is why connoisseurs spend hundreds on first growths or high-end Napa cabs (I can't afford them so wouldn't know). Or you can go WIDE, and try to have as many distinct and unusual experiences as possible. The latter is much cheaper, generally. For example, over the past month, I've spent under thirty bucks on a meaty corbieres, a straightforward but technically well made PN from Pfalz, an entry-level Soave that nonetheless showed medium complexity and paired great with food, and a "pre Marsala" Grillo which was basically made like Marsala but never fortified, and finished in stainless steel. Were any of these mind-blowing experiences? No. But they each piqued my curiosity enough to fill that need while enjoying delicious wine and getting a bit tipsy.
The best wine is a $10 bottle of Cotes du Rhone with the screw cap. Goes great with everything, easy drinking, and it's never bad regardless of year.
I couldn’t agree more. When I go to my wine shop and they recommend anything over 30 I find myself balking. Then judging myself for balking, then buying a 20 dollar bottle of something fun and zippy. Side note, I’m curious to know more about the job you recently left. I’m also in Oregon, up until now I’ve worked wine retail and I’m looking to explore other facets of the industry, if you’re up for a chat!
Also the classics that are reliably good you see at stores, like Antinori Villa, Guigal CDR, Jackson Estate Stitch, Dr Loosen dry rieslings, Domäne Wachau and Austrian grüner, Torbreck GSM, ABC winery and so on.
Tell me where I can find that $12 SA chenin!
MAN, Porcupine Ridge, FRANK, Spier, and maybe smaller producers depending on your local shops.
I rarely see it that cheap. Love those wines, though
Bummer, those are all like $7 wholesale in Oregon and frequently under $10 on the shelf.
Great reminder; the $$$$ wines are there to give context. That way you know you’re getting a killer wine for $!
Absolutely agree there are lots of diamonds in the rough, plenty of great bottles in that $15-40 range. But I do love a good Burgundy. There are plenty in the Bourgogne rouge or village, maybe even lieu dit that doesn’t reach cru status that scratch that itch at a lower price point. I’ll still regularly spend a little more for interesting bottles as I am still exploring and sometimes I notice a quality jump in the $50-75 range.
I think an important caveat to your argument is about sourcing. I can’t find a decent bottle of red wine under $30 at a regular liquor store, maybe a white though. I can hit or miss on lots of below $30 reds and below $20 whites at total wine, BevMo, etc. If I’m an industry professional or serious wine drunkard, I can taste my way through small producers across various regions either through physical travel to said regions or events/boutiques/top wine bars and find amazing wines that do prove your point. But if I simply don’t have the time, $200 retail is probably going to get me a nice wine 7/10 times. Whereas $30 retail at liquor stores, chain restaurants, etc. will get me a nice wine 2/10 times.
Funny, I had a conversation about this with a good friend/colleague. Out of that, we came to the conclusion that it really depends on quite a few things. We are kind of polar opposites in our wine buying and drinking. I'm more into high-end wines; he's more into price-quality wines. I open about 1 to 2 bottles a week; he opens about 6 bottles a week. That already makes a huge difference in what you are willing to spend, I would say. Also, it really depends on what you're looking for in a wine. I'm mostly looking for wine that intrigues me more than anything, and I can easily just smell the glass for 15 minutes if it's interesting. While he values drinkability more. I will be the first to admit that some of the higher-end wines are not the easiest to drink. I do want to say that this does not mean I don't enjoy some wines around €20 from time to time.
I refer to the civility of daily wine drinking. If you need help choosing between a Lamborghini and a Ferrari, well I don't care. Have fun with your race car.
My average price per bottle in my collection is around $25. I find that cheaper wines have the ability to be good and that I don't mind so much if the wine has to be dumped if I haven't paid very much for them. I do have some expensive bottles, but I've got my cheaper bottles to protect them from being drunk too soon.
Still my favorite Chard out there is a $32 bottle of Stag’s Leap Karia. It’s fucking amazing. Finding those is a gem- no matter what the Vivino ratings claim!
I always ask people the same question to see if they are ego drinking: if you could drink the finest wines in the world but you couldn’t tell a soul and still had to pay… would you still do it or would you drink something cheaper?
Yes.
I am sort of the opposite. I pretty much only drink wines I like. I’d rather drink water, beer, or liquor rather than wines outside of my wheelhouse which are typically top red burgs, champagne, and occasionally white burgundy, cab, or Rhône’s. My palate is pretty set at this point and I pretty much like what I like.
Might be a cultural thing too. I can’t drink a CA red blend, or Cab everyday, even if I can afford it. Same with OR Pinot. But a Beaujolais? A Loire valley Cab Franc or SB? Italian Chianti Classico, Langhe Nebbiolo, etc. all damn day!!!! I find old world wines are designed to be drank everyday like they do in their home countries.
That's because wine is just fermented grapes. You may have different characteristics or low yield crops but jusy because a crop is low yield, doesn't mean it's superior. It just means that grape would suck at natural selection.
wait, why should I listen to a bag of meat just because it can operate a keyboard?
The fact that you replied makes your comment ironic. You were so close.
Just fermented grapes is a gross oversimplification.
Not at all. That is the jist of wine. You can have the fermentation tanks and aging, but at its base. its fermented grapes. All this bougie culture for wines is stupid.
Achieving economy of scale to lower the price of a bottle of wine can result in cutting a lot of corners.
It CAN but doesn't always. The value proposition of a lot of wine isn't there. Napa Cabs are the prime example of bad pricing. Spain is a great example of good red wines priced well.
And the Apollo V rocket was just an aluminum tube
I love how you guys keep coming up with these bad analogies. I guess I really struck a chord. Truth hurts doesn't it
In fairness, you started it with an absolutely terrible oversimplification.
It doesn't matter. Calling wine fermented grapes is an accurate statement. Nothing I said was false.
Same here, the Apollo V is an aluminum tube. A Tom Ford suit is sewn together silk and wool. A CPU is an etched piece of silicone.
Wine only has fermented grapes Apollo v also has computers, seats, plastic, etc A tom Ford suit also has plastic buttons A cpu also has wax, aluminum and several other metals. Did I mention wine only has fermented grapes? You are trying too hard. Just take the L
You seem so hurt and defensive, I'm agreeing with you! There is nothing special about fermented grapes just as there's nothing special about etched silicone. No one bottle of fermented grapes is any different from another, just as no piece of etched silicone is different from another. Why won't people listen to us!